


nereid

by catarinquar



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Post-Episode: s07e07 Orison, Sex, happy birthday to very special agent dana katherine 'im a medical doctor' scully, season of secret sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 14:09:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17899586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catarinquar/pseuds/catarinquar
Summary: In the cab, she twines her fingers with his. Runs her ice cream-sticky lips over his knuckles, keeps their hands safe in the floral lap of her dress. San Diego like this is all shallow waters, uncharted.-s7/post-orison. mulder takes scully to san diego for her birthday.





	nereid

**Author's Note:**

> connected to [sportstar](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16278584) only in that i stole the setting from myself.

Scully is at home a stone's throw from the Pacific. _On the edge of the known world, Starbuck,_ but not quite alone: no one’s going to miss out on La Jolla when the weather’s like this, but it _is_ off-season, and dragging towards evening, too. They have reservations at a pub. Just a secret watering hole well-loved by the locals, really, but Scully told him it could get crowded, so he’s made sure there’ll be a table for them.

Well, she’s got something she wants to show him, first; _wait, Mulder_.

Crouching to dip her hand into the cool water, she looks like a kid. Bare feet, scabbed and bruised knees, blue sundress caught carefully behind her thighs. Floral and ruffled, it's something Mulder imagines her airy sister would have worn.

The thought that he’s captured this woman from somewhere else - stolen her from some other, lighter fate - will always weigh heavy on him, but he has long since recognised that she is not without control. That her pull on him is just as strong.

She beams at him, squinting against the bright February sun. Tucks a too-short lock of damp hair out of the way. “Melissa and I used to spend hours exploring tide pools. Well, I did. Missy sat close by and turned lobster.” Tucks again; the coastal breeze is playful. “Charlie would help me, though, whenever Bill got tired of him and left - oh, look at that!” She grins, bringing a starfish up from the dark. Water drips from her fingertips and elbow, sends ripples across the calm surface.

Oh, he looks. Stares at this child's treasure Scully has caught for him, at her girly dress and tomboy knees, at her pearly-white teeth.

-

Eight years ago when his newly assigned partner walked into his office, wide-eyed and at least fifty percent shoulder pads in both weight and volume, Mulder never would have thought he’d end up celebrating her thirty-sixth birthday in the same bar where she celebrated with her younger brother after being admitted at Stanford. He’d tried his best to rile Scully up, back then. Now, she’s pretending she isn’t engaging him in a game of footsie.

He splits the last wine between their glasses, leans forward to be heard over the noise. “So, is it a step up from a keychain?”

“I liked the keychain,” she purrs, then wraps her tongue around her ice cream spoon. Christ. “And I like -” she waves the spoon around to indicate more than the pub, he thinks, “- this. Although I admit I’m still waiting for an embarrassing surprise.”

Mulder had of course referred to Scully as his _partner_ on the phone with the barkeeper last night, and he’d had to divulge the reason for their visit before the man agreed to save them a table at his relaxed establishment. Their server told Scully _happy birthday, Mrs. Mulder!_ when he came with their food nearly two hours ago.

“No surprises,” he promises for the sixth time.

One of her shoes drops to the floor with a dull sound before he feels the point of her toes sliding high on his calf, up and past his knee. “Good,” she says.

-

In the cab, she twines her fingers with his. Runs her ice cream-sticky lips over his knuckles, keeps their hands safe in the floral lap of her dress. San Diego like this is all shallow waters, uncharted.

He’d been on edge the night after Pfaster, afraid not so much of Scully as of that creature inside her, the one he knew would seduce the both of them if given the chance. Trick them and drag them into murky waters before they could know what had come over them. But Scully said _slow_ , _we’ll take it slow_ , and he’d believed her. Put his trust in his touchstone, his North Star, his Stella Maris. In the end, there’d been no mythical traitor; only the tangible betrayal of her traumatized body.

Her head lolls on his shoulder as if she were sleeping, but her teeth are sharp against his neck, scraping over his carotid artery. Her tongue traces the same path, _up-up-up;_  eyes open, intent and paying their driver no mind.

She had cried, let anger and saltwater tears wash over salt skin, then moved slick and languid down his body as she bathed him in easy kisses, and he’d wanted - he’d told her to _stop_ , that this wasn’t what he wanted. Made himself a liar to make a point that she waved away. _I want to feel close to you_ , she’d breathed, and so close he could taste her bruised lips. He’d let her go then, feeling safe in lying back to let her have her way with him.

When she reaches his jaw, he turns to capture her lips. Keeps kissing her until those deep-blue eyes roll back.

-

The difference between Uncle Sam’s dime and old New England money is made up of silk sheets and well-lit bathrooms. When he gets the last button at Scully’s back unfastened, she steps back to let the dress pool around her feet, chest heaving. Hides nothing, searches for his reaction for only a second before she finishes with his clothes. Playful.

Following her into the shower, stepping under the spray feels sacred; feels like being baptised in the church of Scully, goddess of - it all, all of it. She anoints him with sweet-smelling globs of shampoo and shower gel before he is allowed to touch her in return. God - oh, _she’_ d know he does.

“You taste,” he growls, placing open-mouthed kisses down the slope of her shoulder, “like almonds.”

Scully purrs, leans into his touch. “It’s California, Mulder.” Grapples blindly for his hands to drag them back around her waist, _up_. “Hotels are probably - oh, _that's…_ mmh, obligated under state law to offer almond soap specifically. _Mulder_.”

Almonds or almond soap, _whatever, Scully_ . His hands were made for this. Kisses take trips, skim her clavicle and get sidetracked following the raised welt curving down her scapula; and that's _sunscreen and seawater_ , _Scully_. The other raised scar, then, is a bitter _miracle_ , _Scully_. Her neck when she bares it to him, her pulse thumping under his lips: tastes like _life_ , _Scully_.

His hands travel down again and she rocks against him, once, before twisting to watch him sink to his knees. Reels him in with a leg hooked over his shoulder. Her first gasp steals the breath from his lungs, but he wouldn’t mind drowning here. Tastes briny, like ocean, like _Scully_ , _Scully, Scully._

There’s a rhythm to it, lave-roll-suck, hand on her hip and _stand still, please,_ when she jerks; _don’t hurt yourself, Scully_. He enters her with one finger, two. Lave, suck. In-out, twist and crook on the retreat, and that’s enough: her thighs quiver and over the water he can hear her keening, hear the wet slap of her hand against slick tiles, shower fixture - anything to hold herself up. He chases her through it, follows the roll of her hips.

When she resurfaces, she gives him no time to catch his breath; clawing at his shoulders to get him to stand. “Where are you going, Scully?” He comes as far as to the underside of her breasts, panting against the soft skin there. “Have all night here.”

“Mmh-no, don’t want… t’wash away.” Out of breath herself, she pets his hair. Soothes where she might have tugged a little too hard; he wouldn’t know. “You’d just have… have to start over.”

Oh, it’s not as if he wouldn’t like to, but then she reaches for his cock. Runs a finger from root to tip and drags her thumb through the precum pearling there. Mortal man does not challenge Dana Katherine when she is impatient. He reaches around her to turn off the water and lets her drag him dripping wet back out to the bedroom and the blue silk sheets. Hand around his wrist as if she’s got something to show him, as if everything she must know about gravity has slipped her physicist’s mind.

“Are you sure?” he asks, settling in the cradle of her hips. He’s been trying not to, for her, but her back and the sides of her ribcage are still wrapped in seafoam bruises. It is the _only_ thing - he wants _so_ badly not to hurt her.

She drags him down, traps him with legs and arms and places kisses along his hairline. “We’re good.” When she lies back her eyes are well-deep, Mariana Trench-deep, and he wants to be lost at sea, here. She angles her hips to meet him and he wants to tell her to remind him - remind him that he needs to tell her about gravity, _Scully_ , because he’s about to forget everything. “We’re so good,” she whispers, and her lips tastes like nepenthe.

-

After, he’s careful not to put pressure on her chest. Rolls them around so she can rest on his instead, and she sticks. Like a barnacle, but the most beautiful, _beautiful_ barnacle. Ear over his heart, she taps out each _thump-thump_ on his ribs.

“You have to understand someday, Mulder,” she says. “There are things… so many things, that I wish had never happened. To me, or to us. To you.” She tilts her head up,  _wait, Mulder_ , as if she’s got something to show him. Something she wants to watch him discover. “But I will never for a second regret you.”

He tells her about gravity.

**Author's Note:**

> say hi on [tumblr](https://catarinquar.tumblr.com)!


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